Lost and Confused in Panama

[Mike Hammered]

Fellow Loungers,

Greetings and thanks to one and all for making this such a great site. I now come before you as a new but long lidified member, hat in hand, asking for your counsel.

I've been looking over the Panama Bob, Panama Hats Direct and Brent Black sites, and becoming more confused as I go. I certainly grasp the relationship between quality and price, and I certainly mean no disrespect to any of these good people; but what is the unifying concept of the Special Reserve hats offered by Panama Hats Direct for $500 that it seems are there to make a joke* out of the $900 Espinal Fino offered by Panama Bob, which are clearly claimed to make a joke out of the $30,000 lids offered by Brent Black.

Opinions? Is there a level of Panamaness, after which the difference in quality is indistinguishable by the normal human eye, or is there a future of gut-wrenching self-loathing that awaits me for not getting the obvious?

I have read the various threads on Panamas offered here in the Lounge, and I realize that all current Panama wearers are pleased with the excellent quality of their purchases and the treatment they have been afforded by these fine vendors, but I'm looking, if possible, for a discussion of opinions on the top-of-the-line products offered by the three sources.

Is it possible to get these gentlemen together for a friendly and informative roundtable discussion about these beautiful hats for a truly appreciative audience?

Help a fellow lidista out.


*Reference
Panama Hats Direct tells me of the Special Reserve, ". . .even though some hat shops are selling this hat for as high as 10 thousand dollars right now. . .," while
Panama Bob's site tells me, "Espinal Fina (the mythical 30,000 hat!)"

 

[HungaryTom]

1000+ weavecount = fine panama hat

Mike,

You are not alone with your passion – the market of the finest Panama hats i.e. Montecristi finos seems to be quite active in recent years. As the book Panama the legendary hat says that really nice panamas never go out of fashion.

You named 3 dealers who respect the appellation control i.e. they deliver Montecristi Panama hats when they mention Montecristi hats. There are a few more hat dealers who offer real Montecristi. The higher priced hatters keep a stock of hats and service the clients from there - instant gratification - not quite, since the upmarket hatters have also waiting times in the high seasons. Lower priced hatters don't keep stocks of unblocked hat bodies - hence the longer waiting times.

I was lucky enough to lay hands on 3 very fine hats from PanamaBob. Look up photos at the Panama Canal thread. Can you see the difference in the weave from the photos? I can’t. And I don't wear glasses yet. The difference is there but it is only visible from the closeup and if you use a magnifying glass.

I could mail my hats for side by side comparison – since the mailing time would take too long, I rather decided to collect and share as many panama hat photos and video as possible in a thread called Panama hat articles form the web. Check Pavarotti, US presidents, Churchills, diplomats hat photos for the finest Montecristi hats – you will see a myriad of everyday Cuenca hat photos. Fine Montecristi hats are ’floppy’ they behave like another material than the ’normal’ panama hats and straw boaters pictured on countless hat photos. Although both are made from the fibers of the Carludovica palmata plant.

Their price is also different- you see on the ebay a current auction with 140 panama hats for 3500 dollars - most probably lower grade Montecristi and Cuenca hats. Handwoven straw hats too. Very good occasion for a hatter who operates in a touristic place-he will sell all in the summer season. However you can get a single high grade Montecristi hat for the same amount.


I can only talk about Panamabob’s top-range hats in superlatives– bargains for the workload that is packed in them. Yep, no marketing tool beats a satisfied customer feedback. I have never seen yet a true close-up photo of a 30.000 dollars panama hat. You can see one closeup photo on Brent Black’s site of one of the best hats - from Simon Espinal with a lots of rings called vueltas. I have one of Espinals sons hats –also lots of rings and a marvel too.

Casey Dalzell calls hats between 900-1200 weaves per square inch (wpsi) a special reserve, Brent Black calls hats with 900+ wpsi also special. 900+ means for example 32*29 weaves/inch. This means 0,8 mm thin knots. PanamaBob aka Robert Weber calls this 900-1000 weavecount hats superfine class and it costs also the same as with Casey Dalzell from Panama hats direct. It seems that this is the highest range where the weavers are ready to go on their own i.e. without extra commissioning. That commissioning money motivates for an even finer work - which only a few can do in a proper quality.

Bob also offers finer grades 1200+ 1400+ 1600+; which seems it must be ordered extra from the weaver, hence the name commissioned hat. Casey does not offer these hats. Brent Black and other up-market hatters also offer them - for the tenfold price.

Sizes of strands: hats with 2000+ wpsi have around 0,5 mm thin knots. Recognizing that little difference between 0,8 and 0,5 mm depends on how sharp your eye is – if you work a lot with microscopes and with detail work (laboratory, engineer, forensics etc.) than you will have a more trained eye for those fractions of millimeters. If you work in a different profession - your chances are higher to earn the money needed for the examinations.


Hope this helps.

Tom

 

[Panamabob]

Is it possible to get these gentlemen together for a friendly and informative roundtable discussion about these beautiful hats for a truly appreciative audience?

I'm game, and I'm sure Casey is game, but I don't know of any other Montecristi person who would show up. I can point out that there is a grand difference between Pile hats and Pampas hats as far as price goes. A 1000 weave hat from Pampas, I could sell for the special reserve price. The Pile hat...well, I couldn't even buy some for that price.

 

[univibe88]

Pile? Pampas? Are they weavers? I apologize, but I don't know what you mean by comparing a Pile hat and a Pampas hat.

 

[HungaryTom]

Weaver villages

Karl,

Those names stand for 2 weaver villages in the Manabi province of Ecuador- where the Montecristi hat bodies are made.

In this context it would be really worthwile to list ALL weaver villages and set the geographical borders for the Manabi weaver region. Or are only those 2 villages left?

The same should be done for the Cuenca weaver region: to list all weaver villages, towns, hamlets etc.

Like with all wine regions with tradition.

Tom

 

[Panamabob]

There are weavers all around, but I'm not giving up more secrets. The best hats come from Pile and Pampas.

 

[Mike Hammered]

Mike,

Casey Dalzell calls hats between 900-1200 weaves per square inch (wpsi) a special reserve, Brent Black calls hats with 900+ wpsi also special. 900+ means for example 32*29 weaves/inch. This means 0,8 mm thin knots. PanamaBob aka Robert Weber calls this 900-1000 weavecount hats superfine class and it costs also the same as with Casey Dalzell from Panama hats direct. It seems that this is the highest range where the weavers are ready to go on their own i.e. without extra commissioning. That commissioning money motivates for an even finer work - which only a few can do in a proper quality.

Tom

Thank you, Tom!

You certainly came through like a champ by solving what I am sure is the most practically helpful issue for impassioned and eager, but inexperienced Panamalics, the "You say potato, I say potahto," "Standard/Metric," "Boy, she was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen" conversion confusion, allowing us - or at least the slower among us - to step closer to our destruction with greater confidence.

More anon as labor me vocat.

 

[MD11]

FWIW, I've got a Brent Black $850 hat on order and from talking to him exhaustively the specs seem to be in line with the other players. It's a 27 WPI (weave per inch) hat but he stresses that there is more to a good hat than just the number of weaves per inch, it's also the quality of the weave work, where it's made (village) and such. I may try a Panama Bob hat next time to contrast the two.

I think you really can't go wrong with any of the "reputable" venders, but the one's that are exclusively on ebay and will not rate your transaction until you rate theirs are one's I'd be worried about.

 

[Panamabob]

27 linear inch, probably a 650-675 wpsi hat. In the immortal words of Sharpetoys, "Buy the hat, not the story!"

 

[Mike Hammered]

I'm game, and I'm sure Casey is game, but I don't know of any other Montecristi person who would show up. I can point out that there is a grand difference between Pile hats and Pampas hats as far as price goes. A 1000 weave hat from Pampas, I could sell for the special reserve price. The Pile hat...well, I couldn't even buy some for that price.

PB,

Thank you for your willingness to "Meet the Press," so to speak, to defend, discuss and educate - Doubleplus bonus points in your favor, indeed!

I believe it was you that you made the comment in another thread - and please forgive my paraphrasing and really forgive me if I've gotten my facts wrong - that the guy who paid $30,000 for the BB Panameister Supremo Grandissimo should have taken the other $29,000 and flown to Ecuador, implying, I assume, that the individual in question had paid $29,000 more than he should have for the power lid.

Would you be willing to explain on what you base this? In other words, would you please tell those of us who do not know what goes on behind the transaction why there is no difference between your 900 dollar high-end beauty and BB's $30,000 Megaspender-O-Rama lid, and how you know this? (Please keep in mind that I ask not with a sniper rifle in hand but out of a genuine desire to know)

Mike

 

[MD11]

I also understand that the artist who made the hat (Simon?) who is rated as the "Best" weaver earns some $25/hr over the hundreds of hours it takes to weave it and then a final commission on the sale. This surely has to be good money in that part of the world and would spring desire in many to emulate him.

 

[HungaryTom]

I did bite the bullet twice

...With Bob

The bill was 830 and 850 USD in 2006 and 2007 respectively - to quote his discounted prices.
The first hat resulted in 1600+ weaves (41*39/inch) and the Carlos Espinal hat-the son of the best weaver- some 1300-1400+ weaves/square inch - since weavers aren't robots and the fibers aren't synthetic - the weavecounts differ in the same hat. The latter hat had more (20) vueltas than the higher weavecount hat and is more regular in its weave.

Skeptics may ask how do I know whether it was woven by Carlos Espinal. I don't know. Maybe Bob did re-weave it - who knows. But I know that the hat is brilliant.

That being said the higher weavecount hat is also very finely woven - it is not only the small knots it has in terms of beauty. None of them looks like straw. Two different people asked what are they made from when they saw those.

You might also think that I am a freak -yes, but remember I never penchant of any other of my clothing items that much - I never posted about my socks or pants or handkerchiefs.

Only handmade shoes.


I also love that Moonlight sonata interpretation- check out the Gould versions too!!!


Tom

 

[HungaryTom]

Panama hat decline

The heydays of panama were in the 1940s - consequently the region with the finest output had also the most weavers at that times. The best hats were woven even for a longer period (6-8 months) than the current 3 months that is quoted as the maximum with Simon Espinal. Many sites list currently a 1 month hat also as superfine. The resulting products must be different.

You find even in 100+ years old articles that only a few weavers can do the best hats- plausible, since the top 3 or 5 always means 3 or 5 people.

Maybe the hatters who offer those expensive hats have collected one or the other specimen and do really not want to part from them or only if a serious client comes.

The best way to discover is to ask them directly.

 

[Mike Hammered]

Skeptics may ask how do I know whether it was woven by Carlos Espinal. I don't know. Maybe Bob did re-weave it - who knows. But I know that the hat is brilliant.

Tom

Tom,

I believe that this ties in very closely with the $900/$30,000 issue: trust.

Throwing $35 into the pot to see what cards everyone is holding is one thing, but you want to base a thousand-dollar bet on something that's a bit more of a sure thing, a dependable outcome so to speak.

Additionally, your speculation about a possible reason for the difference in prices is reasonable, as is MD11's input; but I would expect such to be stated on the site rather than being left to speculation or caveat emptor. In other words, I'd feel more comfortable seeing a more direct line between price and product instead of general explanations that show relative quality up to a certain grade and become vague when the price jumps.

One possible solution might be for the good vendors to post detailed sample pictures of the top-of-the-line pieces they have delivered in the past to give buyers a more quantitative way to judge for themselves the difference and increase their confidence that the delivered product is consistent with said samples. (And wouldn't you like to see what makes a $30,000 hat worth $30,000?)

What say you?

Mike

 

[Panamabob]

Hammered, I've been aroung long enough to know that words are very loaded, especially when coming from newcomers, and double points especially with any mention of Brent Black.

Mr. Black knows that Simon doesn't weave any hats in the 600-700 range, so I doubt that he made that hat. Simon's hats are 1200-1400-1600-1800 weave hats.

Simon told me personally that he is paid $500 flat for a hat for Mr. Black, and then he gets a commission when one is sold...unless things have changed. The commission, if Espinal is telling the truth, is up to 5% of the selling price. He told me he made an extra 3,000-4,000K the last time I talked to him...for the year. He's shut out from talking to me know about business. It seems he's blackmailed. We have to sneak around to buy his wife's and childrens' hats now.




You'd have to decide yourself if the $1200.00 to fly to Ecuador was benefit enough to buy a hat from anyone other than Espinal or maybe even Espinal himself if there is enough cash-in-hand, instead of buying from Black's Espinal collection. No, nobody weaves like Simon, but his kids were getting close, last time I was down. We're not supposed to be able to buy from Espinal anymore, but occassionally one of the armed henchmen slips and we get hats...or is that "done on the sly?"

One possible solution might be for the good vendors to post detailed sample pictures of the top-of-the-line pieces they have delivered in the past to give buyers a more quantitative way to judge for themselves the difference and increase their confidence that the delivered product is consistent with said samples. (And wouldn't you like to see what makes a $30,000 hat worth $30,000?)

I've got $100,000's of dollars of Montecristi customers (their prices, not mine!) that have posted pictures on this board. How am I going to get those hats back to take even more photos?


As I've said before, I'll be moving back to Ecuador in August. If anyone is game, come down during Christmas Break, Easter Break, or Summer Break, and I'll take you to Simon's house...pictured here...and ask him yourself.

No windows, no doors on the inside. This is what being the best weaver in Ecuador gets you for $8000-$30000 a hat.

 

[Mike Hammered]

Panama Bob,

Thanks for your reply. May I ask if you are living dangerously to procure these hats?

1. If I understand you correctly, your response has answered my main question: if BB pays a flat $500 to Sr. Espinal for each hat, then we can assume that each hat would fall within a reasonably close range of quality, one that would not extend to $30,000, with the possible exception of a Gauguin fluke. Certainly $500 dollars to Sr. Espinal would not get one person a $5,000 hat and another person a $10,000 hat! May I ask what the nature of the blackmail you spoke of is?

2. If you have to sneak around to get Espinals made by Simon's wife and children, then the advertised Espinals may be pretty hard to come by. (Do Simon's wife and children keep the hats you get from them a secret from Simon?) Is the same the case for the Alarcon family?

3. My suggestion about the pictures would assume pre-delivery photos rather than expecting a recall for a photo shoot, though what a reunion that would make! The idea of supplying specific photos of the different high-end grades being offered does have merit, does it not?

Overall, the implication that someone is employing armed henchmen to keep you from hats or prevent makers from selling to you is very disturbing indeed. Is there some legal or other remedy, or would that be a naive thought?

Mike

 

[Panamabob]

I don't think I'm living dangerously, no, but I'm not going to put myself into any situation that would be deemed as any more dangerous than a gringo going out into villages on the very dangerous coast of Ecuador.

1. I've said all I'm going to say here.

2. I've said all I"m going to say here, other than to add that all too frequently, hats that good customers have paid for have been bought out from under us. This makes me angry and I have to deal with the backlash from the customers.

3. Sure it does, but then it wouldn't be a hat custom made for the wearer. What you want is to grocery shop, and we don't offer that. Brent Black does.

The armed guys go around and collect up hats. I don't know why they are armed. And yes, the armed henchmen, Jorge and his brother can be bought, too. One man still does not have the monopoly that he seeks.

 

[MD11]

Mr. Black knows that Simon doesn't weave any hats in the 600-700 range, so I doubt that he made that hat. Simon's hats are 1200-1400-1600-1800 weave hats.
[/IMG]

Just to be clear, I wasn't told my hat would come from Simon.. he told me he does the $5000+ hats.. Also, I was confused when I stated I was getting a 27 weave per inch, it's 30.. not a huge difference I suppose.

I think all this back and forth about the benefit each vender provides the local population is pointless without much hard documentary evidence. On the BB site, there is quite a bit of media on his contribution which lends me to think he does support the local village in more ways than not. If there is indeed a dark side to BB that is not under the light of the media, and there is evidence for it, I think it would be prudent to document it. I for one would like to know about it if I"m going to do business with him. But having talked to him extensively before I bought my hat, I can't help but see him as an enthusiastic and supportive business man who also prides himself on making first rate hats.

I think competition is good, and I can't honestly see this industry thriving with only one hat maker, having 3 or more players is only good for the buyer and the workers who make their raw materials. If BB's site is to be believed, on at least two occasions he offered MORE money than was asked by the weavers for their services. Again, if he's lying, I really would like to have evidence so I can act accordingly.

 

[Panamabob]

I always say too much, so I'll stop.


Thanks for supporting the Montecristi industry!

 

[univibe88]

Thanks for supporting the Montecristi industry!

Thank YOU for supporting the Montecristi industry, Bob :eusa_clap